Giant Clank is an enhanced form of Clank, playable in Ratchet & Clank, Going Commando, Up Your Arsenal, Size Matters, and Secret Agent Clank. Clank is capable of transforming into this form after interfacing with an Ultra-Mech pad. The transformation greatly enlarges Clank to a gigantic size, giving him great strength, and provides him with heavy weaponry, in the forms of rockets on his arms and large energy bombs, as well as the ability to fly in space.
Clank also has another larger form, Alpha Clank, seen as a skin in Deadlocked and Full Frontal Assault, enlarging him to the same size as Qwark. Giant Clank is absent in the 2016 re-imagined Ratchet & Clank.
History[]
Ratchet & Clank[]
The technology that enabled Clank to transform was developed by the Ultra-Mech Scientist on Quartu, who had created robot enlarging technology and was contracted to re-engineer it to create the Ultra-Mech Unlimiteds, heavily-armed robots, unaware that Chairman Drek was behind it.[1] In "Find out more about the Ultra-Mech", Ratchet and Clank approached him as he was trying to destroy it, though after they found him, he offered to instead enlarge Clank to destroy the Ultra-Mechs, with the scientist saying that he could theoretically transform Clank back after destroying them despite having never tried it before.[1] Clank stepped on the Ultra-Mech Pad and destroyed the other Ultra-Mechs, and the scientist then recalibrated the controls for the Ultra-Mech Pad so that it in future could only be used by Clank's specific circuit pattern,[2] and rewarded them with an infobot to the Gadgetron site, Kalebo III.
Later, Clank transformed into Giant Clank once more on Veldin during "Save Ratchet's planet". Clank found an Ultra-Mech Pad and transformed into Giant Clank, destroying several blarg soldiers before reaching Chairman Drek in his Ultra Supreme Executive Chairman Drek-Mech. After fighting Drek in his Drek-Mech for a little, Drek reverted Clank to his normal size, forcing Ratchet and Clank to fight him on foot.
Going Commando[]
Ratchet and Clank found two more Ultra-Mech Pads in the Bogon Galaxy. The first they found was in the Megacorp testing facility on planet Dobbo during "Explore the testing facility", where the Mathematician challenged anyone to travel to the Lunar City on the moon to see if they were worthy of competing in the Megacorp Games. Clank recognized the Ultra-Mech Pad and transformed into Giant Clank, then flew up to the moon with Ratchet on his back and fought the Thug Leader in his own mech, commencing "Defeat the Thug Leader". After defeating him, they returned to Dobbo, and the Mathematician rewarded them with a telescreen for the Megacorp Games on planet Joba.
Later, in Allgon City on planet Damosel, the two found another Ultra-Mech pad and transformed into Giant Clank to travel to Damosel's moon to explore it, but ended up in the midst of an alien invasion. They fought and defeated a large mothership during "Defeat the mothership", after destroying the Mothership, they found the Mapper.
Up Your Arsenal[]
Giant Clank appeared in the mission "Film a Secret Agent Clank Episode", in which Clank had to film an episode of Secret Agent Clank starring Courtney Gears in exchange for information from her about her connections with Dr. Nefarious. In the episode, "Maxmillian Strikes Back", Clank transformed into Giant Clank to fight the Terror of Talos, along with the military of a city and a group of giant ninjas, in order to rescue the baroness, played by Gears. Giant Clank fought in a movie set of a city reconstructed in Holostar Studios, with destructible building and miniature vehicles recreated, and defeated the Terror of Talos in the episode.
Size Matters[]
Giant Clank appeared four times in Size Matters. First, Clank found an Ultra-Mech Pad at Junkyard LXIV on Metalis, during "Escape the planet". Taking advantage of the opportunity, he used it to fly to Medical Outpost Omega, after Skrunch warned him that Ratchet was being held there and experimented on. Later, on planet Challax, Clank found another Ultra-Mech Pad near where the ship had landed, and used it to destroy the technomite orbital defenses in "Destroy the space fortress". Finally, during "Defeat Otto Destruct", Clank transformed into Giant Clank in order to compete with Otto Destruct's use of the Shrink Ray against Ratchet and Clank.
In Ratchet's Dreamtime sequence, a sinister Giant Clank appeared and haunted Ratchet, throwing projectiles and attacks that all turned into butterflies. After evading this Giant Clank for long enough, it disappeared into a blast of butterflies itself.
Secret Agent Clank[]
Clank transformed into Giant Clank to fly through the Quasar Fields on his way to Hydrano, searching for his ship.
Rift Apart[]
Clank does not appear in his giant form in Rift Apart. However, his alternative dimensional counterpart, Kit, is seen transforming into a giant warbot, who was originally made to protect the Nefarious Empire. Unlike Clank, Kit would go into giant form whenever she had to protect something important, she would become hostile and temporarily lose the ability to control her actions. She would later become self-aware and learn to control herself while in warbot form in order to assist Rivet, Ratchet and Clank in defeating Emperor Nefarious.
Characteristics[]
Giant Clank, is a gigantic, bulky robot form with a broad upper torso, large metal hands, and strong, thick legs. Giant Clank's metal frame is considerably thicker with plating than Clank's basic form, and the only real similarity between Giant Clank and the base Clank is his head, which is an enlarged version.
When transforming to Giant Clank, the first thing that will enlarge are his legs, followed by his torso enlarging after performing a full clockwise rotation, and finally his head. When reverting to his normal size, his torso shrinks back first, followed by his legs, and finally his head. In Up Your Arsenal he managed to shrink down without an Ultra-Mech pad.
Giant Clank's large size gives him great strength, as his punches destroy large buildings and enemies with ease, while his feet can stomp on several enemies below. His tough frame makes him much more durable, and he can shrug off many small missile and laser attacks that would heavily damage Clank's normal form. His arms are capable of firing homing rockets at enemies, and he is able to release large energy waves that can destroy several surrounding enemies at once. In Ratchet & Clank he will release these bombs from his torso, whereas in Going Commando and Up Your Arsenal he throws them from his palm. The former also requires you to pick up ammo for his missiles and bombs, whereas the latter simply has infinite ammo, with the bombs requiring him to simply recharge a moment for a new one.
Giant Clank can fly in outer space. When landing on moons with lower gravity, he can jump extremely high, almost reaching orbit.
Behind the scenes[]
Early concept art for Giant Clank contains two large shoulder-mounted guns, though these were removed as they were not practical.[3]
Giant Clank was originally going to appear in All 4 One, but he was cut as no role was found for him in the game. The Insomniac team mentioned that they had much nostalgia while planning the Giant Clank's role in the game. In the final game, Clank's RYNO VI Protosuit has a similar appearance to Giant Clank, and concept art of Giant Clank was supplied by CreatureBox.